Beyond Hadrian

 A 2 hour drive from home in west Lancashire can get me to the start of a lot of walks in north Wales, the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, Pennines and the Lake District but this day-walk needed a bit more dedication.  An early start and a 4 hour drive got me to the Harthope Valley at 10am to start my walk in the Cheviots.

Hedgehope Hill from Hawsen Burn

Housey Crags

Although the highest summits were in cloud Housey Crags could be clearly seen.  Good ground underfoot soon had me at the base of the crag with a wide choice of routes to the top with anything from some challenging scrambling to walking.

The Cheviot from Housey Crags

The views were hazy but the valley and its surrounding hills felt big and open with broad grass and heather slopes reaching to a big sky.  The walk over Long Crags was easy and the foreshortened view of Hedgehope Hill suggested more of a challenge that it turned out to be.  Obviously not overly trodden, a narrow path had been worn and was easy to follow to the final convex slope where I emerged out of the midge-populated still air into a light breeze.  The summit is topped by an impressive cairn supporting a triangulation pillar; it turned out to be the most impressive summit of the day.

Hedgehop Hill summit

Looking out towards the North Sea I spied a lower cloudbase and possibly some rain although inland was clearer.  I turned towards Comb Fell encountering some hags down to the col and even more of them at the col, albeit mostly dry, before roughly handrailing the fence to a bend which marked the summit.  Mist had moved up Harthope Valley and ascended its north-facing slopes, spilling over the col I had just walked up from.  I hadn’t yet escaped the midges as I started across the wetter plateau which had some Armco beams places over occasional areas of exposed peat which made progress easier.

The route to Cairn Hill is not intuitive; that is, not direct!  The summit is to the right but the fenceline bends to the left and I was going to take a direct route but after looking at the OS Explorer map I decided to keep to the right of the fence and use it as a handrail feature to take me directly to the summit.  The col between Comb Fell and Cairn Hill had some deep groughs that would provide good sport in wetter conditions.  It was here that I started to meet other walkers for the first time today as they descended from The Cheviot to take the valley route down and past Langleeford.

Cairn Hill summit

On the walk from Cairn Hill to its west top, also known as Hangingstone Hill, I could easily see the group of three Nuttalls to the south and west with Windy Gyle being the most obvious.  Hangingstone Hill’s summit is an insignificant piece of heather in the middle of nowhere, 60 or 70 yards from the signpost at the junction of the three paths of the Pennine Way.  Auchope Cairn was an easy stroll giving teasing views of the more rugged north side of The Cheviot including the rockier features of the Hen Hole and Braydon Crag.  The summit cairns stood sentinel over the view to Scotland and I retraced my steps, stopping for a quick chat a young couple mountain-biking to Kirk Yetholm.

Auchope Cairn summit

Hangingstone Hill signpost

he route to the top of The Cheviot was on a good flagged path which led into cloud which turned out to be drizzle.  I put on my waterproofs at the summit and climbed the slippery concrete plinth to reach the trig point to claim the tick.

The Cheviot summit

The way down followed a reasonable but rough stony track over pink granite to Scald Hill and then past some well-made and numbered (1 to 10, or was it 11?) shooting butts.  This is the standard way up to Northumberland’s county top but I would definitely recommend the horseshoe route that I’d walked.

The day on the hill had been long – just over 8 and a half hours – and I still had to get my boots off and load the car before starting the drive home.  I knew beforehand that it would be a long day; the round trip turned out to be 410 miles of driving 18 hours from leaving home to returning.

High Cup Nick

Is there a more impressive glaciated valley in England then High Cup Nick?  Although it is a magnificent geological wonder, not many people have heard of it and it probably doesn’t get the number of visitors it deserves due to its proximity to the Lake District.

Starting the walk in Dufton soon leads to a green lane that is the Pennine Way and the National Trail is followed to the “Nick” itself.  As height is gained the views open out to reveal the cliffs that line the head of the valley with occasional detours to the very edge being rewarded with some spectacular viewpoints under the day’s blue skies.  One of the group said that the views were the best they “had ever seen”; a statement not to be taken likely as they spent a lot of time walking some of the most attractive peaks in Scotland.

High Cup Nick

The Cup from the Nick

Because of the breeze at the top, we lunched just below the Nick in the sheltered gully and then headed north-west to the plateau of Backstone Edge.  We should have taken a more westerly track as we soon found ourselves amongst the hags and groughs of the peat landscape but, because of a recent dry spell we were able to avoid the worst of the soggier patches by linking some drier areas.  We did eventually follow a bearing to the west and picked up a faint track heading north along the edge that led us to the crumbling triangulation pillar.

Although most trig points mark, or are very close to, the summit of a hill or mountain, occasionally they don’t always mark the highpoint.  The true summit of Backstone Edge is a couple of hundred yards from the trig, slightly east of north.  A few of us retained the purist bagger ethic and strolled across the moorland to reach the small cairn marking the highest point before rejoining the rest of the group.

Dufton Pike from Great Rundale

A descent into the small valley of Great Rundale led to a good track back to Dufton and the welcoming Stag Inn, where the refreshments served were heartily enjoyed.

Fountains Fell

The potential to tick three Yorkshire Dales Nuttalls in a relatively short walk and its proximity to home was the reason I chose this walk because I only had a limited amount of time to commit.  My variation of Naismith’s Rule said it should have taken 3¾ hours, but maps don’t take into account the conditions underfoot and just over 5 hours later, I was rushing home.

I parked near Blishmire House and followed the Pennine Way onto the summit plateau of Fountains Fell.  The snow patches were mostly avoidable and those that weren’t had been fortuitously stepped out by a couple walking ahead of me.  The last rise was banked out with snow and walking to the cairns required some cautious route-finding.  Despite this I still stepped knee-deep into a bog, the water overflowing the top of my gaiter and leaving me with a wet and cold right foot for the rest of the walk.

Crossing the wall was easy because of the banked snow and started a descent towards Darnbrook Fell.  Instead of following the wall, I took a beeline towards the summit but this mistake became obvious in just a couple of hundred yards.  The soft heather was ankle-deep, the spring snow was calf-deep and the bogs had the potential to be deeper still!  Progress was slow.

The trig pillar came into sight and similar to other moorland pillars, it exhibited an isolation found on these flat peaty plateaus, exaggerated by it being mounted on a deep stone base which was clearly above the ground, probably the result of years of erosion.

Darnbrook Fell summit cairn & trig point

I kept close to the wall on the return towards Fountains Fell but progress wasn’t much quicker as the terrain was not ideal.  Walking became a little easier from the Pennine Way towards the broad ridge, passing to the north of Fountains Fell Tarn.  The ridge itself had the most pleasurable ground of the day and I was soon at the south top of Fountains Fell where a small cairn marked the true highpoint.

Fountains Fell Tarn

Pen-y-ghent & Fountains Fell from the south top

The walk along the broad ridge to Fountains Fell was an enjoyably easy stroll, particularly after the heather and bog that had characterised Darnbrook Fell.  The summit cairn was obviously marked by a large cairn and the view ahead to Pen-y-ghent was the best of the day.

Fountains Fell summit

I can’t find anything to commend Darnbrook Fell with all of its bog-trotting and heather-bashing, but the ridge between the two summits of Fountains Fell would be well-worth seeking out, particularly on a sunny summer’s day.

Cross Fell

Six of us from my mountaineering club met up east of Penrith at Kirkland in weather that didn’t promise any views, but the boots went on anyway and the walk up to the spine of England began.  Cross Fell is the highest mountain in England outside of the Lake District and is also the highpoint of both the Pennine Way and the Pennines.

Despite occasionally losing the path and straying into ankle-deep bogs, the ascent of almost 2,000 feet was probably one of the easiest I have ever walked.  An easy incline all the way took us to the Pennine Way, where we turned south on to it and followed it to the summit and its recently (2014) reconstructed summit shelter, appropriately cross shaped which guarantees at least one side affords some shelter from the wind.

a misty summit shelter

We left the summit aiming for the Little Dun Fell and Great Dun Fell but as conditions were fairly grim, we decided to descend straight to Wildboar Scar from Tees Head.  My GPS was invaluable in finding the path, which obviously does not having a lot of footfall.  But once on it, the terrain became a lot easier.  As we approached Grumply Hill the view cleared and the panorama of Lake District fells opened out before us.

The only summit of the day was another TRAIL 100 tick which, along with good company, made up for the poor weather.  I’m sure that it would be a much better walk in good visibility and certainly deserving of more attention, but with the big hills of the Lake District only a few miles away Cross Fell is always going to be the poor relation.  If you want a high summit with some peace and quiet, this Pennine giant is well worth a visit.

A Mountain? Really?

As a Nuttall and a TRAIL 100 mountain, Bleaklow Head had at least a couple of reasons for me to tick it.  As it is just over an hour’s drive from home and with roadside parking available at the top of the Snake Pass, leaving only about 400 feet of ascent to the summit, this was going to be an easy day.  Although I was mostly enclosed by mist, the well-paved path of the Pennine Way wound its way through the groughs of the peat moorland.

The bleak landscape offered little promise of seeing any wildlife but I disturbed a few grouse, battering their way into the air, and watched as a curlew, bigger than I imagined it would be, cruised silently past and onwards into the mist.

The mist thickened as I reached a large cairn with an embedded pole marking the summit; or does it ?  The hills database says that the summit is a “tiny cairn on peat hag” which is “0.75m higher than top of large cairn”.  In the gloom it is not easy to find the true summit amongst the many hags on the summit plateau.

Bleaklow's large cairn

The true summit

If you were to ask a child to draw a mountain, I’m sure that the result would be pointy and nothing like the flat top of Bleaklow.  From the summit you have to walk at least a kilometre in order to descend 250 feet – if you walk just north of west towards Barrow Stones, you have to walk over 4 kilometres to achieve the same descent !  Although the summit of Bleaklow Head lies at an altitude of 2077 feet, a reasonable height above the accepted threshold of 2000 feet, it’s hard for me to accept that it deserves its “mountain” status and even less that it is one of the 100 “Finest UK Mountains” according to TRAIL magazine’s list.

The next landmark of this walk was the Wain Stones which were considerably more interesting than Bleaklow’s summit.

"Give us a kiss !"

I took a bearing towards Higher Shelf Stones and soon reached the trig point and summit rocks, at least two of which lay claim to being the highpoint of the day’s second Nuttall.

Higher Shelf Stones trig point

the stones of Higher Shelf

A couple of hundred metres to the east are the remains of a USAF B-29 Superfortress that crashed in 1948.  Some of the engines and undercarriage are clear to see, within a significant debris field.  It is thought that the plane was descending through low cloud and that the crew never saw the ground before the impact.  A memorial has been erected in memory of the crew and a large cross made of stones has been shaped into a nearby peat hag; poignant reminders of those who died far from home.

Superfortress memorial

B-29 engine

B-29 undercarriage

Leaving the tangled wreckage behind, I headed east across untracked terrain to reach the Pennine Way path by the shortest route.  The cloud had cleared now and I strolled back to the summit of the Snake at a leisurely pace under the early afternoon sun.